Tribal Art

Kouyou figures represented frontally, the hands placed near the armpits, under prestigious necklaces. Their scarifications would refer to the scales of the mythical serpent Djo, which would have created the world and father of Ebongo, primordial hybrid ancestor of men. Polychrome matte patina, abrasions, and cracks.
Two totemic clans once formed the Kuyu ethnic group, living along the river of the same name, in the northwest of the People's Republic of Congo: to the west that of the panther, and to the east that of the snake. A secret male association, Ottoté, played an important political role in the appointment of chiefs. The initiation of young people ended with the revelation of the serpent god Ebongo represented in the form of a head. The Kibe-kibe dances that accompanied the ceremony reactivated the successive stages of creation. The panther clan had a drum as their emblem. For its part, that of the snake had sculpted heads, painted in bright colors, on sticks that the manipulator, concealed under a long robe, held with his hands stretched above his head.
"African art" Mazenod